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SAP Center at San Jose
The SAP Center at San Jose, formerly known as HP Pavilion at San Jose, Compaq Center at San Jose and San Jose Arena is an indoor arena located at 525 West Santa Clara Street in San Jose, California. The arena is also commonly called The Shark Tank or The Tank, both of which come from its primary tenant, the San Jose Sharks of the National Hockey League. History Plans for an arena in San Jose go back to the mid-1980s, where a group of local citizens formed Fund Arena Now (FAN), a group dedicated to getting an indoor arena built in the city. The group spent much of its time pushing city officials to build such a structure while at the same time selling the possibility of the building to interested groups, namely the NHL and National Basketball Association. In the late 1980s, then-San Jose mayor Tom McEnery met with FAN and helped to make their plans reality. Eventually, a measure was introduced that would allocate local taxes toward building an arena in San Jose's growing downtown, which would be voted on June 7 1988.> The measure passed by a narrow margin: 73,409 to 64,140. The plans for the arena would eventually be one of the reasons that George and Gordon Gund would locate their new Bay Area NHL franchise in San Jose, which would eventually become the San Jose Sharks. Construction of the arena began in 1991, and was originally slated to open in 1992. The construction ran into a rather sizable delay, however, when the management for the San Jose Sharks realized the arena had been designed for community use, and that it needed a drastic redesign to upgrade the arena to NHL standards. Most notably, the original arena design had no luxury suites or a press box, with the introduction of the former to the original plans would have reduced the arena's seating capacity to 14,000. The time taken to redesign the arena delayed the opening of the building to 1993, forcing the Sharks to play an additional season at the Cow Palace. The arena opened in 1993 as the San Jose Arena. In 2001, naming rights were sold to Compaq, and the facility became Compaq Center at San Jose; the geographic identifier was needed because at the time, there was a Compaq Center in Houston. After Hewlett-Packard (HP) purchased Compaq in 2002, the company chose to name the arena the HP Pavilion (as opposed to HP Center or HP Arena) after one of their computer models lines. It was announced in late April 2007 that the HP Pavilion at San Jose would be receiving several building improvements, including a new scoreboard similar to that of the TD Banknorth Garden, home of the Boston Bruins of the NHL. With the addition of the new scoreboard and sound system, the existing control room was transformed into an additional luxury suite. A new video control room was constructed on the lower level of the arena. The sound console was moved to the broadcast pit, joining Sharks TV, Sharks radio, and visiting TV. Visiting radio was moved to an auxiliary location in the catwalk on the bench side of the arena. In June 2013, German software company SAP (co-founded by Sharks managing partner Hasso Plattner, who is also SAP's chairman of the board) purchased the naming rights to the facility in a five-year deal worth $3.35 million per year. The arena was renamed "SAP Center at San Jose" following the approval of the San Jose City Council. Tenants game]] SAP Center at San Jose houses the San Jose Sharks of the National Hockey League and the San Jose SaberCats of the Arena Football League. It is also the venue for the annual SAP Open men's tennis tournament. The facility has also been home to the Golden State Warriors of the NBA during reconstruction of the Oakland Coliseum Arena, and the defunct San Jose Rhinos of Roller Hockey International and San Jose Grizzlies of the Continental Indoor Soccer League. It was also formerly home to the San Jose Stealth of the National Lacrosse League. External links * Official Website * Architect's Website Category:NHL arena Category:AHL Rinks Category:Indoor ice hockey venues in California